


It All Started On A Bus

by DownhillWeGo



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eliott's POV, It starts rougly when Lucas is like 13 and Eliott 15, M/M, Meet-Cute, and the story of my friend's crush on a guy she saw all the time on the bus, bus story, i guess, inspired by Les Voyages en Train from Grand Corps Malade, literally no dialogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownhillWeGo/pseuds/DownhillWeGo
Summary: The first time Eliott noticed that boy was on a Friday. The boy was sitting by himself at the end of the bus. Eliott shouldn't have seen him again, and yet he had. Over and over again.But luck had nothing to do with it. Or did it?
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 3
Kudos: 129





	It All Started On A Bus

**Author's Note:**

> So ... A couple of days ago, I was thinking about a slam song called "Les Voyages en Train" from Grand Corps Malade in which he compares relationships to the whole train experience (if you can, listen to it! It's great) and then this idea wouldn't leave me alone so... Tada!
> 
> Unbeta-ed, as usual, so all mistakes are mine and I'm sorry 'bout it. 
> 
> Hope you'll enjoy!

The first time Eliott saw him was on a Friday. 

It was the coldest day of the week, cloudy and wet, which made him feel like his clothes were clinging to his body in an uncomfortable way. He rushed out of the school yard, avoiding other students making their way outside and sped up towards the bus stop, the rain rapidly soaking his grey coat.

Despite his best effort, Eliott missed his bus.

A few meters away from the bus stop, his body shivering, he watched it move away without him. He groaned lowly, as one did when facing upsetting turn of events, and sat down on a bench, anxiously waiting the arrival of the next bus.

Life was funny sometimes. For how could he have predicted that such an innocent, yet unfortunate event would become a turning point for him?

A few minutes later, he sank down on an empty seat in the bus. He wiggled on his bum for an instant, trying to get comfortable and let his eyes wander. He saw a tired-looking lady trying to stop her kid from climbing on another man’s lap and hid his smile behind his scarf.

Then he looked up and there he was.

That boy.

Eliott didn’t know what was so intriguing about that boy. He wasn’t even able to see his face properly. The boy was hunched over; his body wrapped in a big black coat. He was typing on his phone, and his face was mostly covered by a dark scarf. The only thing Eliott saw of him was his spikey-looking dark hair and his long fingers running across the screen.

He glanced at him a few times, endeared by the way his body was swallowed by his huge clothes. The boy never lifted his head. 

In the end, Eliott was the first one to get off the bus. 

At the time, he thought nothing of this encounter. That boy was probably going to become one of those thousands upon thousands of people Eliott would meet in his lifetime and would never see again. Like a shooting star.

Yet, hours later, on that very same day, he drew a small animal wrapped in dark clothing.

But, unbeknown to him, life had other plans.

\---

For a while, Eliott didn’t seen him again. Weeks, then months flew by without a sight of him. Winter ended and spring took its place, bringing in the warm weather and covering gardens with flowers and trees with luscious leaves.

Eliott had forgotten about that boy. The only thing left of him was the drawing he had done months before, hidden away in a cupboard with his other drawings.

Then, on a Friday in late April, on his way to the bus stop, Eliott suddenly remembered a book he had forgotten in his locker. With a feeling of déjà-vu, he saw his usual bus leave without him and took the next one.

That was the second time he saw him. 

The boy was facing away from him, Eliott only able to see the back of his head, yet he knew it was him.

There just was something about that boy that Eliott liked. Something Eliott couldn’t put his finger on.

From then on, without really noticing he was doing it, Eliott started missing his bus on Fridays to wait for the next one. He would leave school in a slow pace, sometimes go to the washroom so he could buy himself some time.

It became a game, sort of, to see if he’d see him again. And in the end, he saw the boy almost every week.

Most of the time he was alone, sitting at the end of the bus with his head lowered on his phone. Other times, he was with another boy who had a bright smile, rarely, with a girl with long brown hair.

The boy laughed a lot when he was with either one of them. Somehow, it was exactly how Eliott imagined it to be. The boy had a bright laugh, seemingly coming from deep inside of him and lighting up his small figure. Eliott could barely contain his smile every time he heard it.

In a way, without ever talking to him, Eliott felt like he knew him. The boy always had an open demeanour around his friends, but once alone, Eliott was able to see the tenseness in his shoulders, as if he was holding inside his most private feelings, just like Eliott was.

After a while, when he started feeling more and more like a stranger in his own body, seeing that boy became comforting.

Eliott didn’t know how to explain why that was. Maybe it was one of those things that simply was, no reason necessary.

Eliott was always the one to leave first, shooting a last fond glance at the boy as he stepped out of the bus, watching it become smaller and smaller as it went away.

On the last day of school just before summer, Eliott left the bus with a sense of dread washing over him. He stared at the leaving bus and stood by the bus stop for a few minutes before he sighed and finally headed towards his house. 

Eliott wasn’t sure he’d see him again.

He was starting high school in September. 

He wouldn’t be taking the same bus.

\---

High school was okay. 

Eliott was intimidated at first but he guessed every first-year student felt the same. In a way, it was reassuring to see those tense faces seemingly lost in their new environment, just like he was.

Yet, Eliott didn’t face high school alone. He still had his best friends from middle school by his side, Idriss and Sofiane, and became quite close with Emily, the girl sitting next to him in maths class. With Emily came Lucille, a gorgeous girl with warm brown eyes.

Eliott quickly fell for her and after a few weeks of hanging out casually, they started dating.

Throughout the first few months, their relationship was great. Then it was less so. Then it was bad before becoming great again. It felt like a circle of bad and good, but it was familiar, and familiar was a good thing when his head started going from bad to worse.

Eliott knew being with him wasn’t easy. Most of the time, he couldn’t even stand himself. But Lucille’s constant presence around him was comforting if not overbearing at times.

For the first two years of high school, Eliott didn’t see the boy again, just as he had imagined. Without realising it, he started to forget he even existed. Sometimes, he would dream about a faceless boy with spikey dark hair but when morning came, Eliott would usually forget about dreaming it at all.

And on a Thursday evening, during his third and final year of high school, he saw the boy again.

The bus was more crowded than usual, and Eliott found himself being pushed against the window as many people made their way inside. Barely able to look at his phone anymore, Eliott looked outside to distract himself and blinded by the sun, he lowered his eyes.

That’s when he saw him, sitting on a bench at a bus stop, about 6 stops away from his school.

It took him a while to realise it was the same boy. Mostly because he had grown a lot since the last time Eliott had laid eyes on him. His clothes didn’t seem to swallow him up anymore and Eliott let his eyes wander on his figure, a warmth in his belly at the sight of him. The boy had changed, but Eliott would recognize that boy anywhere.

There just was something about him.

That night, Eliott drew the boy again. Somehow, the whole image seemed tender, softer than the one he had made years before.

From then on, Thursday became Eliott’s favourite day of the week. The only day he would catch a glimpse of the boy. Sometimes, the boy and girl Eliott had seen him with before were there, but Eliott usually didn’t pay them much attention, too busy glancing at the boy for the few seconds he was allowed around him.

For most of the year, Eliott watched him through the bus’s glass windows, hoping for the day the boy would finally look up so Eliott could see his face, a tightness in his chest he wasn’t able to quite understand.

A few months before the bac, Eliott had his first major manic episode. He tried to kiss Idriss, effectively tearing their friendship apart in his mind, and broke Lucille’s heart once again.

In June, after a month-trip at a mental institute, he moved out of his parents’ home and found a new flat in another part of Paris.

He had no reason to take the same bus as before.

He had no reason to ever see the boy again.

\---

Starting at a new school for his second final year of high school was nerve-wracking.

Eliott had tried to go back to his old school. He really had. But the memory the place held had been hard to face. 

It had been too soon, too raw. 

So, in December, encouraged by his parents and Lucille, he decided to go to another school to have a fresh start. In Eliott’s mind, it didn’t matter anyway, he’d be out of that place in no time.

On January 7th, the first day of class, Eliott climbed in the bus and stared numbly at the wet Parisian streets as the bus led him to his new life, his stomach twisting nervously.

The school looked like any other school. Grey but full of life.

In the school yard, he noticed Imane, Idriss’ sister, sitting on a wall to his right and promptly lowered his head. He didn’t know she was there, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Then, just when he was entering the main building, a group of boys walked towards him and just as they crossed paths, he bumped shoulders with one of them. 

The shock made him stop dead on his track and he felt a shiver run down his spine. He turned his head and looked behind him.

And there he was. The boy from the bus.

In his new school, in this new chapter of his life. 

The boy didn’t look back, too deep in conversation and completely unaware of the earthquake he had provoked inside of Eliott. Eliott couldn’t look anywhere else, his feet rooted on the ground as he watched him walk away, his heart in his throat.

With a shuddered breath, Eliott turned his body around and finally moved deeper into the hallway, feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Somehow, Eliott felt this wasn’t a simple coincidence. Throughout all these years, in a circle of finding him just to lose him time and time again, the boy was back in his life once more. But not in a bus, or through the windows of a bus. No, this time, it was in the flesh, right there, in his new school.

That night, he drew another picture of the boy and hid it with the other ones. Maybe one day he'd show him. 

From then on, Eliott never imagined that taking his bus every morning would put him in such a good mood. For almost three weeks, he would get in the bus, his stomach twisting excitedly at the thought of seeing the boy again.

He saw him in the hallway or by his locker. He saw him in the school yard, laughing along with his friends. He saw him everywhere, really. He had yet to find the opportunity to introduce himself, but he was gathering his courage. Every day, he felt more and more assured it was going to happen.

Then on a Monday at the end of January, Eliott was standing in the school yard smoking a cigarette when a perky blonde girl called Daphné, came bouncing in his direction and handed him a flyer. Without giving him the time to look at what it was, she started talking fast, blinding him with her big smile, and invited him to a meeting happening on Friday afternoon. Then, as fast as she had arrived, she whirled away, heading straight for another group of unsuspecting students.

Eliott let his eyes wander and as if his whole being knew he was there, he noticed the boy coming out of the restroom, flanked by the three guys he often saw him with. A short moment later, Daphné ran to them and started blabbering excitedly.

Eliott looked down at the flyer she had given him and smiled.

Maybe it was the opportunity he was looking for.

\---

On Friday evening, Eliott was leaning against a wall a few meters away from the common room. He discreetly observed a few students getting in and felt like hiding when he saw the boy’s friends entering the room a moment later.

Could he do it?

He felt nervous for some reason, as if what was about to happen was of the utmost importance and in no way should he screw this up.

After a few minutes, he exhaled loudly and shook his head. Excitement filled him and with a decisive nod, he pushed himself away from the wall and stepped towards the common room. He headed inside, nodding at Daphné when she greeted him with a smile, and moved to a seat closest to the door. He smiled brightly at a girl as she sat beside him and turned his head, trying to see where the boy was. Timidly, his eyes moved to the front row and met a pair of deep blue eyes.

Unable to blink, Eliott’s heart skip a bit. Those eyes belonged to the boy, and the boy was looking at _him_.

His eyes seemed to pierce right through him, pining him to his chair and Eliott held his stare for a few seconds, the corner of his lips curving up, unable to hide how he felt.

Relieved. Giddy. Smitten.

Stopping himself from staring at the boy during that meeting was hard but Eliott felt the glances the boy kept throwing his way. His whole body felt alight with a buzzing energy and a smile stayed on his lips throughout the rest of the meeting.

When Daphné let them go, Eliott saw the boy leave with his friends. Eliott bit on his lip, unsure what to do next and finally decided to go to the bus stop, believing he’d get his chance to talk to him some other time.

At least the boy knew about him.

By the bus stop, he noticed a vending machine and stepped behind a lady as she reached for her chocolate bar. Then he stood in front of it, biting his nails as he considered his many options.

That’s when he felt him to his left.

He’d never been this close to him before and even with the obscurity of the night, Eliott finally got the chance to truly look at his face. From his big blue eyes to his cheeky smile to his tousled dark hair, the boy was even more beautiful than he had imagined.

That evening, as they talked at the same bus stop, waiting for the same bus, Eliott finally learned his name.

Lucas.

A fitting name for a bright boy.

The wait for the bus was full of stilted conversations as the girl, Chloé, who had interrupted them, kept trying to engage Lucas into talking, something the boy didn’t seem that inclined to do. Once she left, climbing in her bus, Eliott felt Lucas relax and they both sent each other a secretive smile, both clearly relieved to see her go.

A few minutes later, they got on the bus and sat next to each other, making small talks as they started learning about one another. Eliott found it hard not to look at him. He felt like now that he freely could, he didn’t want it to stop.

In an odd feeling of déjà-vu, Eliott was the first one to step out of the bus. 

Only this time when he looked up at Lucas, shooting one last glance in his direction, Lucas was watching him too. Before the door closed behind him, Eliott turned his head and sent him a shy smile.

The last thing he saw as the bus left was Lucas’ answering smile.

Somehow, Eliott knew this was only the beginning. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr if you want to chat : @tumblingdownthehills :)


End file.
